September...ahhhh!

 The rush of summer vacation, visiting relatives, or just relaxing in the sun is over really before it even began. It has been a strange summer I am sure for everyone. In our area we are trying to be as normal as we can with a few exceptions because of Covid. This past weekend we got together with DH's family for a corn roast and we took our trailer to have a weekend camping trip. The rains came and went all weekend but yesterday was a beautiful sunny day(just in time for us to leave)

tried to find a pretty photo spot

In the sewing room...there has been slow to no progress. I am finding it hard to stay motivated to sew. I can do lots of hand stitching or knitting but sitting at the machine..not so much. Now I have spoken of this before and had many others agree with me. So I am hoping that with the Fall weather approaching that will change. I did persevere and finished this top this past week. I going to blame Kathy on this one. When she was here visiting last year at this time, she was making these free form stars from scraps. I fell in love with them. She was using scraps but I decided I could do them with 2 1/2" squares. I had hoped that that would clean out a box of squares that I had been cutting, saving and wanting to use. NEVER MADE A DENT!!

Closer view

Deciding on sashing and borders was a bit difficult as I don't have large pieces of yardage. So I improvised and used two different fabrics.I plan to bind it in black or  black with small white print to keep in the gray/black theme and offset the bright colours of the stars.

Although I am a day late, I am still joining in on Kathy's slow stitching and sharing my finished top(it still needs quilting). I am spending today stitching hexies into the main body of a quilt. Terrible headache due to shifting weather patterns has me not wanting to do much but sit and rest and stitch! That is never a bad thing!!

Mini holiday

 We took a couple of days and went to visit our daughter. She had arranged for us to have family pictures taken that was a Christmas gift for me.It was a fun mini holiday. I also got to meet my friend Louise's newborn granddaughter. With all the Covid rules in place, I was happy to just get to see her...but I was able to hold her too just no kisses or snuggling!! Apparently it is an "older" lady thing...wanting to see and hold babies. What do these young kids know!! haha

Other things don't stop just because you are gone for three days. The garden kept growing and producing and I have been in pickling mode once again. This picture shows today's work, pickled beets and some from the other day ...more dills.

On our drive this week I got in some knitting and the evenings gave me time to make these hexie diamonds. Any other time....I was sleeping or sitting with my poor tired feet up!!

With a coffee in hand, I will be checking in with Kathy and the ladies and looking for some inspiration to get sewing. I have heard from many and they are all saying the same thing...blame Covid!!

Have you seen my quilting mojo!!

Yes my mojo seems to have disappeared and I don't know where to look for it or some inspiration. I have been knitting and working on my hexies so not totally useless. I did do one afternoon of sewing on these cute little wonky scrappy 6" star blocks.(these are also Kathy's fault/influence) I think I almost have enough to put together a quilt top.

There has also been lots of fabric petting going on. I went searching for fabric for a mystery that Kathy has enticed me with. I thought I had the perfect fabric but they said no directionals. They offered a sneak peek and I took it...yup no directional so back into the stash to find something else. I was a member of a fat quarter club and I have many so I wanted to use them up and also didn't want a beige or white for the background. So I went in search of a background fabric that had 4.25 meters. I found this dark tealish blue with black swirls. Now how to contrast the other colours...make them pop....black to gray with a bit of white! These fabrics have been sitting on my ironing board for a couple of days and I still like them so today there might be some cutting happening. This is for the Morewood mystery. It is a monthly mystery and it isn't too late to join. So far we only have fabric requirements and cutting instructions that can be found at their website.

fabrics for mystery

Pickling and baking happens as I continue to reap the benefits of our garden. Some things will be in the garden way into September...lots of squash and zuchinni.

With  a coffee in hand I will be checking in with Kathy and friends this morning. Can't promise that any slow stitching will get done today but always fun to see what others are doing. Maybe just maybe something will spur me on in the sewing department. Have a fun day and a great week ahead.

Quilting Hiatus

flower bed 1

cone flowers

hens and chicks

It seems as though that is exactly what has happened. I have not been in my sewing room for well over 2 weeks. I have worked on my hexies while fishing with DH but sitting at the sewing machine...nope!!

Now to explain...of course there is always an excuse reason! One of my closest friends became a grandma again. So of course I had to make something but she is a quilter as well so I leave quilts to her. I have been in knitting mode instead.  I will be delivering them next week and hopefully will get a peek at the new little addition!

purple poppy

But today is for me...to get back into the sewing room and find something to do?! Really what I mean is figure out where I left off on any given project that I might want to work on. I am posting a day late to join in on the slow stitching with Kathy. But know I was busy with a different kind of thread and did check in to see what everyone was doing...and get some inspiration.

Hollyhocks

pots of portulaca

So I decided that this post will be a view of my gardens. The other day I went out and took pics of all the blooming flowers and one of the continuing to grow gardens(we  have 4 gardens in various places).

Pickling(dilled beans) has begun and also the zuchinni loaves are being made and frozen for the winter.

Sorry about those little white squares and rectangles....posting pictures in this new format has a bit of a learning curve.

Get moving Monday

Fall themed donation quilt

I have had my days mixed up this past weekend..I kept thinking it was Monday and Tuesday for some reason. So now that it is Monday...time to get some things accomplished and get my studio table cleared off.

Yesterday was so hot and humid here you couldn't hardly breathe. Even with the fan going, the only relief was to head to the basement 

but when you did come back upstairs it was worse. Rain is in the forecast so we can only hope it will cool things a bit.

snowman challenge

snowman backing

I got two quilts machine quilted and bound this past week. My new Juki is making this process so much more enjoyable although machine quilting is still not my favourite thing to do! Binding finishes will be happening this week. The Fall coloured quilt was a "just let me sew quilt"! It was a get it done quickly and once the top was finished I wasn't sure how about an outside border...so after thinking and consulting my friend Natalie....bind it and be done!! I was clearing out an "ugly" fat quarter package but through making the quilt with the perfect background colour, it grew on me! The snowman quilt was a challenge for guild although with this year as it is...it is now a donation quilt. No yardage was harmed in making the backing for this one...but lots of fat quarters were cleared out!!The binding was made from some fabric that I know is over 29 years old!!

I just wanted to do piecing this week as a break from all the other things. I had some small wonky stars cut out and ready to go. They got sewn up quickly and then I spent the afternoon and evening picking out more pieces to make more stars. They are so cute and I think I have many more to make to have enough for a quilt...the blocks are 6"!

wonky stars

Although I am a day late, I did look in on my friend Kathy and her slow stitching Sunday crew! Thinking and blog writing was just too much for my brain to handle yesterday. So I am joining in today instead, cooler heads and temperatures prevail!

I want to wish my baby girl a Happy 29th birthday(this past Saturday) hope you had a fun party!!

I ammmm meltingggg!!

This is suppose to be close to Northern Ontario...land of cold, snow  and cooler summer temps. We have been in and out of a heatwave with lots of humidity...I just feel like a puddle some days. We had a good storm go through this morning, 11am looked more like 9pm, it got so dark!

It is good for the garden and we are starting to enjoy the fruits(veggies) of our labour!

snowmen don't make it cooler

whole top

I am in the new project mode. This week I finished the top of a challenge from guild. It was suppose to be handed in for June but guild meetings have been cancelled. So I will have it finished for September hoping we will be able to meet again! We got the pattern and could use whatever fabric but the large blank space had to tell the theme of your quilt. So this past week I was embroidering snowmen. They do look cute although they are a bit washed out and not as vibrant as the rest of the quilt.I used the leftover fat quarters to make the backing. I didn't have enough of the black for the outside border so cornerstones were all that was needed to make it work. Just using up what I have.The challenge snowman quilt will get basted this week and machine quilted but I really wanted to do some piecing.

This morning I was on mask duty for hubby and I. It will be mandatory this week to wear them in stores or businesses in our area. We have had one all along, although we haven't been using them, we were just keeping our distance from people when out!

I have also cut out strips for a scrappy donation quilt. I have the urge to sew up a quilt, one that I can get done fast and feel like I am accomplishing something. I found these fat quarters while looking for something else. They are not the prettiest so they need to be cut small!!I also found the perfect background fabric to go with those scraps...tune in later this week hopefully for a finished top!!

Kathy mentioned on her blog the other day about a mystery (Morewood Mystery)starting up  at www.MeadowMistDesigns.blogspot.com. Looks interesting with not much fabric required to start. I will be stash diving so I can play along. It is a monthly mystery starting July2020-April 2021.Kathy you are a bad influence..you enabler!! haha

I will also be reading Kathy's blog today(as all good stalkers should do) to see what everyone is slow stitching on. There has been lots of time for slow stitching...my hexies have been getting lots of attention.

Have a great week ahead!

Heatwave and another finish!

hexie in process

It has been a hot few days. I open windows in the evening and early morning to cool off the house and then close everything back up. That worked for the first few days but then it just got to humid and hot. Luckily we had a good storm and the temperatures have dropped and I can begin to cool the house again. With all this humid weather the gardens are doing well...at least something likes that kind of weather!

I have had little ambition for big projects so my hexie quilt has had many pieces added to it with a long way to go yet! I also finished a lap quilt which has a funny story.

Pick you a daisy

Many years ago(over 12 years I think) Kathy of Kathysquilts blog fame donated a UFO to her guild's program "adopt a UFO". She figured she would never finish it. A mutual friend of ours adopted the quilt and later gave it to me to adopt. It has been in a basket, moved 120 miles to our new home and has been in another basket. I thought it was time for it to be finished. I always told Kathy that I would finish it so nicely that she would want it back but she doubted it!! I always knew what I wanted to do and last week I started to see my vision come to fruition. Two days were spent gluing edges of the appliques, then sewing the appliques down on the top and preparing a backing. Then it stalled again because of the heat! Yesterday, I pin basted it, machine quilted it, squeaked out enough binding from one of the backing pieces(I did a patchwork backing) and completed the binding last night. The petals are a little fluffy because I didn't want to use steam a seam product on them or spend the time to hand applique. This will be a donation quilt to some organization. It is finished and I think it is fun and some little person will love it. My plan is to give it back to Kathy and let her decide where it will go to live!!Hope you like it Kathy!!

Today's plan is to see if it is going to rain or not and if it stays nice...we are going fishing!( my hexie bag will be with me). Slow stitching will be making more diamonds to fill in the holes in my main top(see the pic above,Belle is being so cute near the quilt) so that soon I can get it finished as well. I have been working on this quilt for over 7 years...it is time!!

So I will be checking in with Kathy and her slow stitching day to see what everyone else is working on. I have noticed a lot of cross stitchers joining in...seems to be a resurgence of this craft.I might have to dig out one that is partly done and I haven't worked on since moving here(12+years ago) Have a great week and stay healthy and cool!!